Thank you to Orbit and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

The minute I opened this book, I was hooked. The City of Dusk is full of political intrigue, has a unique magic system, and vengeful Gods. These are great ingredients for a story, but there were some aspects that fell short for me.

Tara Sim’s writing is incredibly vivid and I loved it! I felt fully immersed in the story, with a clear vision of what was happening because of how she was able to connect her words. She effectively built a world that captured my attention and made me all the more intrigued by what might happen. The four different houses, the four Gods, and the four heirs to each house were all very well crafted. The characters themselves had depth and were easy to follow and align with.

My biggest issue with this book is that it felt like it dragged unnecessarily. There were moments that felt unnecessary to the overall storyline and could have been held out. This did not completely ruin my reading experience, but it did drag out the experience longer than it could have been. There were a few times I contemplated DNFing, only because it was taking so long to get through it, but then the book would speed up and remind me why I was enjoying it. I’m also not sure I agree that this is a “dark adult fantasy.” It felt much more YA to me.

I am glad I stuck it out and finished The City of Dusk. It’s an incredibly intriguing plot with political intrigue that had me hooked. I’m keeping my eye out for the second book and while it's not at the top of my TBR list, I do plan to read it when it releases.

My Rating: 3.5/5

I wanted to check out this book because of the synopsis and I will say this was an interesting original fantasy story but many times it read more like a young adult story.

I did enjoy the multiple character POVs, the diverse representation was pretty good, the magic system, the dark atmosphere and the world building was amazing!

It was really hard to get through this book. The plot at times got repetitive, had a lack of continuity and the story just coasted until the end. This is a 3.5 star book. I would be interested in reading the sequel.

Thank you to Orbit Books and NetGalley for providing me with an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

DNF 20%

I'm not finding much to connect with here. The author has obviously put a lot of work into this world, but there's nowhere I feel like is a good place to grip. It reads more like YA than adult–the first ten percent of the books is introducing each character in a way that's not quite enough to care and too long before things feel like they move along. And that's my problem with the book on the whole, I think: there's nowhere to sink into this world between brief character moments and infodump. No matter how intricate or interesting the world is, without the characters leaping off the page to bring it all to life, I can't get there, because fantasy isn't my thing. I have to get there through the people.

I have really enjoyed other works by this author, but this one wasn't for me.

DNF at 50%

I'm so sad that I had to DNF this book, I wanted to like it so much. I've not read this authors YA books before and wanted to give her adult fantasy a try. This books read extremely YA, not adult. I read a lot of adult high fantasy and this was not that. The magic system and world building were really interesting but I felt like at 50%, nothing was making sense or clicking for me. I didn't get enough page time with each character before the chapter and POV was switching to someone else. I also feel like there were way too many POVs who have similar voices, that it was hard to distinguish the storylines. As an adult fantasy reader, I feel like the YA themes and writing style are what killed my interest. I may come back to this one once its published, but for now, I"m going to say, Tara Sim may be an author that just isn't for me.

Tara Sim has an absolutely incredible knack for world building. With gorgeous and immersive descriptions, you really do feel this world start to form around you. I struggled with the pacing as it can be rather long and dense especially in the first half which threatened to take me out of it, but I try to close one eye as it sets the stage for the rest of the trilogy and ultimately works out at the end.

Another thing that Tara Sim excels in - building characters. Some characters I did not particularly care about until the end, but there are 6 povs and each voice is distinct. Gorgeously diverse and casually queer.

I'll definitely be getting my hands on the next book as soon as possible.

- incredibly dense
- Really intense
- Not the best thing to read when you are stressed and sick (unless it becomes a comfort read over time etc etc)
- Politics! Magic! Everyone is queer!
- I do not read enough fantasy to deal with this
- Risha is my favorite for the record, thank you
- This is SO LONG

Four stars. I Do Recommend It.

Tara Sim, the author of The Timekeeper Trilogy, The Scavenge the Stars Duoloy, and several enchanting short stories, starts her adult debut with a city held in the sway of four influential houses.

Four gods. Four families. Life. Death. Shadows Light. But how can a city survive when the gods leave, causing their queer descendants to bicker and bargain over power? How far will they go to save the city from themselves? Tara Sim knows how to write a novel tailor-made for goths in a dense story full of politics, clashing characters, and an intense magic system (I <3 Taesia Lastrider 's shadows). It's easy to imagine how the towers pierce the sky, the incense at the temples, magic circles scribbled on the ground, certain people playing a child's game called Sacrifice.... The crossover appeal will also attract fans of YA, especially those who love epic fantasy worlds with detailed histories.

For me, what I loved while reading was the city's history. While immensely dense at times, there were moments when I felt more invested in the past of the Houses than in the actual characters. It was fascinating seeing the contradiction of their powers and magic used to be vs. what they are now. (Tara, A+ job with the demons.) I can't wait to see more of this pay off in the next novel.

This is a hefty novel meant more for seasoned fans of the genre. While this may not be for every reader, I have a feeling Tara Sim is playing a long game with the plot.

NetGalley provided an ARC. All opinions are my own.

I liked this one, but also didn’t. It is a weird dichotomy. Set in a world that has been cut off from other realms, it is slowly dying because a balance is needed between the realms. The main characters are the heirs (plus their siblings) of the four main houses that are connected to specific gods and have magical powers because of it. As issues continue because of the Sealing, they try to figure out how to break it. But the gods have different plans for the heirs, and there are other players on the board that could change everything. I honestly really like the characters in this. They were multidimensional and their relationships were interesting. What I didn’t really like is the plot. Or more so, the “twists” that kept getting thrown in. Like the main plot-line was interesting and flowed well. But then towards the end, it just seemed like other things got thrown on top to make things interesting, but for me it overshadowed what the plot had been working toward the whole book. I think I’ll pick up the next in the series, but it will be with some trepidation.

Series Info/Source: This is the first book in The Dark Gods series by Sim. I got an eGalley of this book through NetGalley to review.

Thoughts: This was incredibly well written and I thoroughly enjoyed the detailed descriptions, complex world-building, and intriguing magic here. This is truly a fantasy of epic proportions and I respect the effort that went into building this story.

This is the story of four potential heirs to the throne: Taesie (who can wield swords and shadows with equal deadliness), Angelica (who wields the elements), Nik (who wields light) and Risha (a necromancer who can control the dead). When things start to spin out of control they will need to decide if they will work together to stop the destruction or if they fight each other for a chance at power.

I am a huge Sim fan and this was my least favorite book by her so far; that’s not to say it was a bad book…I just didn’t like it as much as her other books. I felt like the first half was very slow and the characters weren't as engaging and personable as her characters usually are. There also weren't any touches of humor; this book takes itself very seriously. I still enjoyed this, it was just long and at points you really felt that length.

I think part of the pacing issue is caused by the large number of viewpoints we jump between; this made it tough to engage with any one character and drew out the storyline. I enjoyed all the viewpoints we read from, it just made things move slower and feel longer.

I never wanted to stop reading this because I love Sim's writing style; it flows beautifully and her descriptions are amazing. But, I did have some times where I had to put the book down and rub my eyes and sigh, thinking "Oh my goodness is this book ever going to end."

My Summary (4/5): Overall I liked this. It is a beautiful epic fantasy with really cool magic and excellent world-building...but...I didn't love it. I do plan on continuing the series and hope that the next book is a bit tighter and maybe has fewer POVs. I would recommend this if you are a fan of Sim’s writing style or if you enjoy epic fantasy with intriguing magic systems.

Ok so, I gotta be honest y'all. This book is too long. It's a slog. And I'm a Brandon Sanderson fan.

The difference here is he's better with his word economy. What happens on the page matters and there's enough going on from page to page and chapter to chapter to keep you interested in 500+ pages of story.

The City of Dusk doesn't really do any of that. It's not a bad book, it just needed to be thinned down. This book was so long, I stopped being excited to read it. After reading, I wouldn't want to read anything else for the rest of the day. In print it hits around 570 pages if I remember right.

And it's the first in a series! That's too long! At least for the actual content in the chapters and scenes. Here's the thing. This book has a really great premise. A magic system that I think is interesting (not sure, I'll get to that later) and a big cast of characters. A lot of them are queer and there's no homophobia!!! After one of the last books I read had homophobia in it, I was worried but this, at least, was a breath of fresh air in that regard.

Now, it gave me Warhammer 40k vibes. Which I loved. The settings are dark, things are rough. It was great.

What isn't great is the characters are flat, description runs on too long and it's vague. There's a family of necromancers and they use string to bind spirits. We only ever got vague descriptions of how it worked, but with so many words that basically said nothing at all.

Here's the story setup. This world, Nexus, used to be connected to other realms. Other species/ races are now trapped there due to the Sealing. When the gods up and disconnected everything for some unknown reason. Now the realm is failing, dying and if they can't break the Sealing, who knows how long it'll last. It's up to a group of heirs who are early in adulthood to break it down.

Now, you might ask why it's up to them. Why don't those in power do something? Isn't' it a little unbelievable?

Nope. Those in power want to stay in power, not admitting anything is wrong and get richer while those below them suffer. It is the most realistic and grounding thing in the book.

This is marked at adult and the characters are in their early twenties. I appreciated that. I'm so tired of fantasy always being people in their forties. Adult fantasy has had no variety for so long and I want this author to do well to bring younger adults into it without them feeling like they absolutely have to read YA. Adult means adults of every age, not just people closer to midlife and up.

That said, I don't want to spend this review ragging on the book. I, unfortunately, can't see myself reading it again. It's just full of unimportant prose. And it takes so long to get going. No one should have to read a book on the promise of "oh but that last 20-30% really pick up" because that's a sign that there's a real pacing issue.

I give it three (3) stars. Hopefully the next book is more edited and really brought to heel. Just because it's adult fantasy and has a bigger word count doesn't mean we actually need all of the words possible. Especially when they don't say much.

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks to them and the publisher

The Cirt of Dusk was a very interesting debut to The Dark Gods series. The description sounded promising, but I found that it was too long, especially considering it’s only the first book. I believe that if it had been more concise, or even if some scenes were less extensive, I would’ve had the motivation to finish.

Taesia definitely comes out as the main character - even though it's multiple POV - but I am NOT made about that. She is 100% my favorite character and her character development - including her family relationship - was one of my favorite while reading. The City of Dusk has a wonderful and detailed world full of gods and magic. There was so much to love and uncover. While The City of Dusk might have a very typical "Book One" elements like a longer exposition to set up the world, an explosive last quarter to get ready for book two, I am so in love.

The City of Dusk balances a story about unlikely alliances with a plan to save the city. But nothing is ever as simple as it seems. This plan will test them in ways they never could have imagined and reveal things they never knew. It's a story that asks about rebellion and power. Once the action pieces really start to stack up, it becomes a race to the finish. Because it's multiple POV we are able to see all the pieces begin to come together which inspires intrigue and suspense.

Centuries ago, the Gods sealed the doors to their worlds, locking their people outside. Trapped in the country of Vaega, refugees from all four realms must live in peace under the rule of a tyrannical "Holy King." The four families descended from the Gods themselves carry small remnants of their namesakes' power, and they all compete for the favor of the King. When one family of heirs realizes their world is slowly dying, they decide to make a plan to tear down the seals and find their way back home. But facing the King, the Gods, and the other heirs to do so is far more treacherous than they could ever have imagined.

City of Dusk has so much going on. I mean that in the best way possible. Monsters, morally gray protagonists, powerful Gods, political intrigue, terrifying magical abilities, demon-summoning cults, you name it, it's in there. Every moment is filled with twists and surprises. Every character is set up with impossible choices and has to decide which of their morals they're willing to compromise for the survival of their people. I can promise there is not one point as a reader where you will know what will happen next, and it makes for a spectacular reading experience.

Because of the complex plot and world-building, there are times when the book feels like it drags a bit. But we are setting up a whole series here, so that's pretty par for the course. If you can get through the intense build-up the payoff is absolutely worth it. There's more than one reveal that had my jaw on the floor.

Because of the above mentioned, I rated City of Dusk 4.5 out of 5 stars. It was an incredible read and felt reminiscent of Six of Crows due to the multiple POV and plotting. Another book I would compare it to is The Mask of Mirrors.

While there's no overtly explicit content, there is brief sexual content, pervasive cursing, and a heavy dose of violence, so I would only recommend this book to readers 18+.

I truly loved this novel and can't wait for the next installment.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Much like a few other first-of-the-series fantasy books I have picked up recently this book took awhile (for me) to get going and grab my attention but once it did I really liked it and the end was quite a ride! I will also say that when I started this I was having a hard time focusing on...much of anything really...so it may have been more me than anything else. But fantasy world-building does take some time so just be patient! It switches between multiple character POV which I really enjoy. I am excited to see where this series continues! I also hope (and assume) there are some maps in full release which I will need to look up ASAP.

Also isn't the cover just beautiful!

I love Tara Sim. She’s a great author who knows how to tell a story and how to set a scene well.

The City of Dusk is a vivid world filled with fantastic characters that I can’t get enough of.

I do feel like the book could have been cut down just a tad, but it didn’t hinder my enjoyment and I’m greatly looking forward the next book.

It’s a low 4 stars for me, I found it a bit over long for the amount of story but it’s also setting up a world and a lot of characters so it’s a minor complaint not a big one. I think this is being marketed as adult but the characters are all young heirs to their houses who are only just adults. I think an older teen would like it too.
There’s some mild sexuality but nothing explicit. I think the worst might be a character leaving a courtesan in the morning and admiring her beauty as they go. I am certain that unless you have a completely and utterly cloistered teen they’ve seen something more explicit by 16. I would not recommend it under about 16 though.
The characters were well developed, the magic system was interesting and since we mostly saw a single city the world was well enough developed for a good read. I did check books two and three as to read on Goodreads. This one was more than good enough to make me want to read the series.

Sometimes it's nice to read a piece of well written, traditional fantasy. On the other hand, I really enjoy when a book takes your expectations around some tropes in a genre, lets you think it's all going to plan, and then really lets them go. Tara Sim's The City of Dusk falls into that second camp, as she sets up a world in which you (as a fan of epic fantasy) think things are going to go the way they always do, but the further in you get, the more you realize your misassumptions have colored your understanding of the story. The world building is top notch; as the first book in a series of epic fantasy, it's understandable if the author is either exposition heavy or provides too little detail, but Sim has walked that line masterfully. The characters, as young adults, present well, with emotions and maturity driving much of their decisions. I look forward to following along with the rest of this story.

Having seen this book seemingly everywhere and having enjoyed Tara Sim's YA work in the past, I was excited to dive into The City of Dusk. This book is definitely a long one and there's a lot going on, but I ultimately enjoyed it.

First off, the world building was glorious. Nexus was a lush and vibrant city - even as it was dying - that felt realistically full of multiple, occasionally clashing cultures all moving and living amongst each other. Some of my favorite moments of this book came as the characters explored different corners of the city, showing us glimpses into other lives. On top of that, the Four Realms felt just as concrete, as if I too had grown up hearing stories about them and the gods who ruled them.

Just as vibrant were the characters, with the 4 heirs (or 3 heirs and Taesia, as it starts) all feeling independent and distinct, which isn't always the case with multiple narrators. Julian too stood on his own, ultimately becoming one of my favorite characters as I found myself sucked into his journey to learn more about himself and the pull between him and Taesia.

That said, I did sometimes find that having - ultimately - 6 POV characters pulled me in too many directions, making it hard to keep track of how everyone was feeling and what they were up to at any given time. In some ways, Dante felt unnecessary, but given that his storyline was something of a backbone for the rest of the characters, I ended up wishing we had gotten more chapters from him, and perhaps fewer of the other heirs moping around and feeling conflicted.

Additionally, there were moments were the pacing seemed to slow unnecessarily, when no questions were answered and the POV characters were spinning their wheels as they waited for Godsnight to come. As I mentioned, The City of Dusk is a long book, and there were times when it felt that way.

Ultimately, though it was a long ride, it was a fun one, and I look forward to the sequel, thanks to that massive cliffhanger!

3.75/5

The City of Dusk is a sweeping fantasy novel following Four Nobel houses, each with a unique power, as they come together to stop an impending, multi dimensional war. Sim brings some lush world building and intriguing magic to the table here but as an overall story things felt a tad generic and underwhelming for me.

I think it is important to note that this was touted as an adult fantasy, my main source of contention with this writing is that it didn't read as one. The characters and world building all felt reminiscent of young adult literature. I expected more depth in both character and world building...sadly the only thing that felt like an adult fantasy for me was the length.

All that being said, Sims really can paint some beautiful imagery with her prose. She completely captivated me during our exploration of the four houses and their gods. The quality of writing was such that I would gladly pick up her future works as she continues to hone her craft.

In The City of Dusk we follow four noble houses as they come together to form an alliance to fight a war. There is a good combination of mystery, imagery, and darkness that immerses you into the realms but the lack of focus makes the length of the book a struggle to finish.

This book is marketed as an adult book but reads very YA and that might have hindered my excitement in reading. While I do love a good YA story the struggle occurred because I was expecting adult.

Maybe I'll have to try this book again at a later date. The concept is great but I just struggled to pick it up and read every day.